Lawyer Reid Schar argued that Gov. Chris Christie's former deputy chief of staff, Bridget Anne Kelly, and former Christie campaign manager William Stepien should be forced to turn over documents and electronic records that the joint panel has subpoenaed. He said the committee issued "very focused subpoenas" and was not engaged in a fishing expedition.

Kelly is suspected of initiating lane closures to the George Washington Bridge over the Hudson River that tied up traffic in Fort Lee, N.J., for four days starting the first day of school Sept. 9. The suspicion is based on e-mail she appears to have sent from a personal account to an associate at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Following the closures, as the incident became more political, Stepien was brought into a discussion of a published story about fallout and replied that the mayor of Fort Lee, who had complained about Port Authority response to the closures, was an "idiot."

Christie fired him for that remark. He also fired Kelly for her involvement.

In court, Stepien's lawyer argued that the subpoena was forcing his client to attest to the existence of documents and be a witness against himself. The Fifth Amendment offers protections against that action, Kevin Marino said.

Existing and known e-mails, which Marino read in court, "do not permit the fair inference that there are other documents," he said.

In rebuttal, Schar said the existence of additional documents is not an open question.

"I'm not guessing, judge," he said. "I know it because I've seen them."

At the close of the hearing, Jacobson said she would be issuing a ruling soon but did not estimate a date.

The ruling is likely to be issued after Monday. Jacobson gave the lawyers until then to submit briefs on the legislative committee's power to hold those not in compliance with subpoenas in contempt.

In New Jersey, the Legislature can hold people in contempt if they don't answer questions or provide documents that lawmakers subpoena. From there, contempt charges are forwarded to the Mercer County Prosecutor's Office where the county attorney can decide whether to pursue a case in court. The charge is a misdemeanor.

At least twice, Stepien's lawyer argued that the legislative panel was misrepresenting case law in its arguments in favor of the subpoenas. That misrepresentation was "astonishing," he said.

The subpoenas to Kelly and Stepien were among more than 20 issued to the governor's office, employees and executives at the Port Authority and Christie's campaign. Kelly and Stepien say that because federal investigators are probing deeply into their lives - asking questions of Kelly's father, ex-husband and former in-laws, and questioning Stepien's landlord - that they have a right not to provide the government with documents that could be used against them in a possible criminal case.

Turning over documents would violate their federal Fifth Amendment and Fourth Amendment rights to not incriminate themselves and not be subject to unreasonable search, their lawyers say. Kelly attended the hearing; Stepien did not.

Christie's former deputy chief of staff is a central figure in the lane-closure scandal. Her e-mail to a former Port Authority of New York and New Jersey executive, David Wildstein, connected the governor's office to the closings.

"Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee," Kelly wrote Aug. 13 to Wildstein.

"Got it," Wildstein replied.

Stepien, a two-time campaign manager and a former deputy chief of staff for Christie, said in legal papers that investigators went to his landlord asking "was he married, was he a rowdy tenant, did he pay his rent on time," Marino wrote.

Although both said in court papers that federal investigators visited people they know, the U.S. Attorney's Office has declined to confirm a federal investigation. The joint legislative committee is doing a separate probe.

Two criminology professors say investigators often follow leads and question family members and landlords.

"If (federal investigators) knock on somebody's door, there might be a perception that they are overstepping their bounds. Sometimes the public thinks the police are harassing people," said John Comiskey, professor of criminal justice and homeland security at Monmouth University in West Long Branch, N.J. "But as an investigator I have a duty to go wherever the investigation goes and to get to the truth as far as civil boundaries will allow.

"There's no bright-line rule on when police are violating your privacy," he said. "What we're looking for is connectors."

Those connectors increasingly come by way of cellphones, the Internet or video surveillance, said Joseph Giacalone, a former detective sergeant for the New York Police Department, now an adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City and author of The Criminal Investigative Function.

The judge, speaking with Kelly's lawyer in court, expressed doubt that the documents now made public were the only ones his client may have had concerning the lane closures.

"'Time for traffic problems in Fort Lee' - it didn't come out of thin air," Jacobson told Michael Critchley, adding that earlier communications had to exist.

But Critchley refused to concede that Kelly sent the e-mails Wildstein said she did. He contended that the burden of proof is on government.

"The Fifth Amendment is liberally interpreted and broadly applied," he said.

Later, Critchley argued again that the breadth of the Fifth Amendment was significant.